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Hey, ya'll! It's National Kite Month (http://www.nationalkitemonth.org/). AND, First Sunday Fly is coming up! Welcome to April, welcome to the "kiting season". It really is time to dust things off, air out the bags, get organized, and go hit the flying fields! See you at the Washington Monument grounds on Sunday, I hope. The weather forecast right now looks great!

Partly Cloudy, High of 66, Winds SW at 10. AND, Saturday is supposed to be Sunny and WINDY, which might help to dry out the monument grounds a bit before Sunday.

Gang, I got a very good question from Ron Sitnick about First Sunday Fly: "...with the small parking lot by the Tidal Pool closed off for Sakura, where are you going to try and park?"

Don't forget that the Cherry Blossom Festival is still going, and I do believe this weekend is the forecast peak time, so there may be large crowds and limited parking. Certainly the Tidal Basin parking lot will still be closed. As with the festival last weekend, I've been looking for announced street closures and such. I have seen nothing in the way of street closures near the monument that would affect us (presuming there's not something out there I haven't seen or heard about). It appears Constitution Ave will be open for parking, but if not I'll be looking at the side streets north of the Mall: 17th, 15th, or perhaps F Street or G Street near 15th (a bit further away, though). Honestly I haven't made any plans yet. I may just go light and take the Metro in.

Oooh, Ron reminded me (he's just a font of info, you know)...For the Cherry Blossom Festival there is parking at Haines Point with a free shuttle:

"Park in the middle of the cherry blossoms along East Potomac Park and enjoy the FREE shuttle service from the Hains Point parking area to the Tidal Basin terminus area. Shuttles run on 20 to 30 minute headways from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM daily, March 28 - April 12."

NOTE!!! There WILL be significant street closures on Sunday, further impacting mobility and parking (see link below). Take note! I think this is a perfect weekend to consider taking the Metro in for First Sunday.

On the flip side, take a look at the latest weather forecast for Sunday! Partly Cloudy, high 68, winds SW at 12 mph. Combine that with the tourism crowds (audience) and we have one fine First Sunday Fly on tap!!

Darn, this must be one of those "how the brain works" things. I was sure the below particular parking restriction item on the link I provided said "Sunday" (my brain read it that way, anyway....TWICE!). Part of the reason I thought so is that the Cherry Blossom 10-mile Run and Cherry Blossom 5K run-walk ARE being held on Sunday, and part is the way WTOP presented the closures in their item. However, if you look at the route maps (http://www.cherryblossom.org/images/09images/09-10MCourseMap031009.pdf and http://www.cherryblossom.org/images/09images/09-5KCourseMap031009.pdf), the routes stay off Constitution. Regardless, be advised you'll likely encounter street closures on the run/walk routes on Sunday.

Parking also will be restricted from 5:30 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Saturday:

We had a good group of WOW fliers & Friends of the cub, mostly on REVs with insanely huge crowds most of the day.

We struggled with our local conditions too, like that is something new!There's not sufficient wind for lengths of 120 and too many folks crossing the lines to risk flying on 50lbers.

Around 2:00 pm the crowd was so large you couldn't take a single stride/step in any direction. I finally packed it in and went home to a park near my residence. Imagine trying to cross the street with a thousand people at each stop-light. Everybody is angry, foot traffic and vehicles, cops riding around on horseback. Some jerk parked behind me illegally and directly in contact with my bumper. LOSER! I couldn't even open the tail-gate or back window.

Before it got to outrageous though, we had folks cheer and heard their applause doing the most simple of team movements together as a 5 or 6 pack of pilots. Big crowds make it worth the trouble, but on a fabulous day they can be overwhelming on the monument grounds of the district. It didn't matter if you took Metro, walked or struggled to find parking. Getting downtown Sunday was a tough chore!

Would we all do it again? You bet we would, . . . .... you should join us if the opportunity ever presents itself. Even the conversations during lunch are worth it!

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